Begin at the beginning, the king said gravely, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

Monday, March 5, 2012

A tiny bit of random...and a few FAQ's

I missed my normal Sunday post, and not the newspaper kind. I wish I could say I was off being productive, job hunting, writing, you know...but I wasn't. I was in fact, re-reading the Riyria Revelations because I've decided that I'll finally finish that series, but figured I aught to remember some of it before I read the last book. I also started re-watching Greys Anatomy, mostly because my roommate is evil, and also re-reading the Riyria Revelations and doesn't want me to get to far ahead of him (I'm about a book ahead).

I did do some writing, though. A friend of mine is getting married, and part of my present to them is writing content for their wedding webpage. I might have gone a bit overboard. The FAQ's are now something like 8pages...although, a good portion of that will be moved onto the "About DC" page, or cut all together.

I think I've been in need of some inspiration lately. And while writing FAQ's is fun, its certainly not all that inspiring at least for me to work on my fiction.

But rather than let it go to waist, I figure I would post some of the FAQ's that will most likely get cut.

Why am I here? If the answer 42 doesn’t do it for you, you might want to check out this video (beware language).

Whats up With DC’s Street names: DC unlike a lot of American Cities was actually a planed city. So it is laid out in a grid, with the Capitol Building at the center. From the Capitol you have East/West Capitol Street and North/South Capitol Street, which can be quite confusing, because if you cross the street you’re on a different street, even if you’re on the same road. Confused yet?

In addition you have numbered streets that run North-South, and move East-West from the Capitol Building…so if you are on 1st and North Capitol, you are on the north side of the street, one block from the capitol building. But there is also another 1st North Capitol Street. If you’re on the East side of the Capitol, it is on the West side of the Capitol.

To keep people from losing their minds completely, they decided to add Regions to the city. You have four regions. NW, NE, SW, SE. These are very important, because say, you tell a cab driver you want to go to 10th and F, and you forget the NW bit. So he takes you to 10th and F NE. You end up in a parking lot, in a questionable neighborhood, instead of that restaurant in Chinatown that someone recommended to you.

Now, my math is a bit rusty, but one group of streets, that don’t intersect (numbered streets don’t cross numbered streets, if you are on the intersection of two numbered streets you are very lost, so lost in fact, that I know where you are, you’re somewhere not DC) so, to make a grid we also have lettered streets. Letter streets run alphabetically from the capitol. They go East-West, and move North-South from the Capitol. They also follow the region rule. This is quite cool, because if you feel like doing so, you can always tell exactly how many blocks you are from the capitol by which street/letter intersection you are at. For example, 10th and F NW is 10 blocks north of the capitol, and 6 blocks west of the capitol.

Now, in case you still feel like you have a solid grasp of where you are; let’s talk about State streets. Because that entire grid thing seemed so completely logical, they decided to add State streets. Every state in the union has a street (according to rumor). These streets mostly run in diagonals throughout the city, in some sort of haphazard order.

In case you’re wondering the point of all this. Its to convay one message. It’s never a good idea to drive in DC. In the event of a zombie apocalypse is there a contingency plan or a safe room that will accommodate all the guests at the party? Yes, and no. Have we mentioned the wedding is on a boat? Since the wedding is on a boat we are going to assume that the entire thing is one moving safe room, unless someone brings the zombie virus on board. In which case, there is no safe room. But in the event of a zombie apocalypse, assuming no zombie virus has been brought onto the boat, were all in trouble anyway. I do believe the caterer only brought a limited supply of food. But don’t worry, we will go out to see and become pirates. So I guess we do have a contingency plan.

Insecure Writers Group

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Story:

I am 25 years old, and have been told more than once, that I have a story to tell, or that I should write a memoir. I am not sure if I belive it, but I do know that I have good days and bad days, and on bad days I have to share, and what could be better than sharing annonomously with the internet world. I am not doing this for sympothy and I am not doing this for money. I am doing this because, I have long lived with the knowledge, that maybe, just maybe, my story could help someone else, like me. Someone going through what I am/did, or contemplating making the mistakes I made, to let people out there know, you are not alone.